We would like to invite you to the launch of a new book on Money in the Great Recession: did a crash in money growth cause the global slump?, published by Edward Elgar Publishing, which Tim Congdon has edited. In the book’s introduction and first chapter Tim Congdon proposes that the Great Recession can be explained by a large fall in the rate of growth of the quantity of money, broadly-defined, which reflected developments in the banking system. In particular, he suggests that the regulatory demand for higher capital/asset ratios from September 2008 caused banks to shrink their risk assets and so led to the destruction of money balances. While banks undoubtedly had problems of their own making, officialdom’s tightening of regulation was mistimed and inappropriate, and had “vicious deflationary consequences at just the wrong point in the business cycle”. The Great Recession could have been avoided if quantitative easing (to boost the quantity of money), rather than the increase in capital ratios, had been pursued earlier.

The book has contributions from nine authors (P. Booth, J. E. Castañeda, T. Congdon, C. Goodhart, S. Hanke, D. Laidler, A. Ridley, R. Skidelsky, R. Thomas), and it is fair to say we do not all agree. The Institute will be holding a series of events over the next few years to discuss the monetary interpretation of the Great Recession, and we hope that you can take an interest and participate in the discussion of the content in this first launch of the book at the IEA.

If you wish to attend please RSVP here or alternatively contact Gail Grimston on 01280 827524.

We look forward to welcoming you.

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